e-title™ provides much greater protection against forgery, alteration or fraud than paper title documents. As a peer-to-peer application, e-title™ utilises two different security technologies – Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) and digital signatures.

HSMs prevent access to or tampering of the electronic title and its endorsement chain, ensuring there is only one holder of an electronic title at a time. Digital signatures are used to secure electronic titles when they are transferred between HSMs. Digital signatures enable e-title™ to track the origin of the electronic title and to guarantee detection of any attempt to change the electronic title or the title document.

The sending and receiving of electronic titles to and from an e-title™ peer works a little like email. When you create an email and send it, the email is sent from your computer to your email server. Your email server then sends the email to the recipient’s email server, which delivers it to the recipient.

When e-title™ creates or transfers an electronic title, it is sent to the back-office or Trade Application to which e-title™ is connected. The Application then sends the electronic title to the recipient’s Application, which delivers it to the recipient’s e-title™.

As is the case with email, if there is a communication failure between the back-office or Trade Applications, the electronic title can simply be re-sent. And there’s no risk of duplicates because e-title™ provides full duplicate and replay checking facilities to prevent double trading.

e-title™ has been designed to work in electronic and hybrid environments. A hybrid is one in which electronic and paper documents are mixed, or when an electronic document must be printed as a paper document. This allows logistics providers, exporters and banks to reap the benefits of electronic document exchange even if, for instance, the importer is not yet an e-title™ member.

e-title™ supports all title transport documents that function as bills of lading. This includes the ocean bill of lading, house bills of lading and forwarders cargo receipts, but also includes title documents that are not intended for negotiation, such as the sea waybill and air waybill.

All bill of lading formats are accepted. The bill of lading can be a fully structured document, such as those presented as EDI or XML documents, a document intended for printing, such as an Adobe Acrobat file, or even an image. Regardless of the format or structure, e-title™ can process the document and create its related electronic title.

E-Title Authority’s current focus is on title transport documents. Other title documents, such as the warehouse receipt and bill of exchange, have unique legal and process requirements. These will be introduced progressively. The e-title™ can also manage negotiable documents, such as the letter of credit, that must be protected from double trading.

All companies register – through their ASP or directly – with the Electronic Title User Group. As part of the registration process, the company (or user within the company) establishes a unique user identifier. The User Group distributes user IDs to all e-title™ applications so that they can be used to create or transfer electronic titles.